


Something Like Friendship

by Sinisterf



Category: Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
Genre: Angst, Dark, Dubious Consent, Introspection, M/M, Male Friendship, Mind Games, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-05
Updated: 2004-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-15 14:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinisterf/pseuds/Sinisterf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The relationship between Gerald and Damien has changed them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Like Friendship

Fear.

He loved the taste of it. So succulent and delicious. No faintly remembered mortal sustenance could compare to even the most meager fair of his hard won immortality.

Fear. It was rich, full, and so very satisfying.

He was a connoisseur of sorts. Nine hundred years of trial and error had refined his taste. He chose his meals carefully, willing to wait for just the right prey to enhance his hunt.

He was a picky man in life and doubly so in unlife.

The beauty of his chosen victims was like the carefully prepared presentation of a gourmet meal. It only added to the feast. He liked them young and tender, like lambs. Moist eyes that would cry so prettily for him, soft limbs that would push and punch before relaxing in utter terror at the final moment before he consumed them.

All of them, everything they had to offer.

He was The Hunter. He had become a monster and he reveled in it.

It was perfection. Aside from the pursuit of knowledge, it's what he lived for.

The taste, the tears, and the blood.

Or he had.

But, not anymore. Not since Damien.

The priest had changed that.

Their strange alliance had changed that.

Damien was an infuriating man. His morals a tiresome nuisance. But he was useful. Gerald trusted him. And Gerald needed him.

A very rare thing indeed.

Because as horrible as Gerald was, there was something much worse.

So, they made promises to each other, and both men would stick to them. They could do nothing else. Gerald’s pride and Damien’s honor held them together. They were comrades fighting for the same cause, if for different reasons.

A Priest and the Prophet doomed by his own religion. Their odd alliance only possible because of the impossible.

He took some small pleasure in the odd circumstances. The situation was ironic.

They were stuck with each other. Him and Damien.

Damien who was infuriating, but so very interesting. Defiant, strong, and yet weak in just the right ways.

He had suspected that contact with Damien would break Damien until he could no longer tell right from wrong. It was what Damien feared most, and therefore what Gerald Tarrant would be for him.

It was in his nature.

But he hadn't realized that it might work both ways.

That their alliance might slowly meld into something deeper.

Damien willingly let Gerald feed on him. And not just once. No, it was a habit, now. Something he counted on.

And the bond this created between them was much more than Gerald had thought it would be.

It had a life of its own, now.

And it grew stronger everyday.

If Gerald was honest with himself, which he always was, then he could admit that the desire to feed was constant. The desire to connect through the bond in the only way left to him was insistent.

It was a distraction.

But he wouldn’t change it, even if he could.

Instead, he savored the memories of their long voyage on God’s Glory. The water of the deep eastern sea cutting him off from his food and power source. He had starved. The woman brought for the purpose of food could not sustain him. Her fear was pure but poor when compared to another.

Compared to what he really wanted.

The girl was not missed when she sacrificed herself to the cold waters. He had given her dreams of them for months, hoping, waiting…

Because he knew Damien would not let him starve. Damien would not let Gerald suffer.

With her death his fast had been broken by nights of gluttonous feeding. The meal made more memorable by the torture he had endured to attain it.

Every night, he could feel Damien waiting, sweating and shaking, hating himself for allowing the invasion. Dreading it, Damien’s fear of the act itself only adding to the feast.

He devoured, and savored the taste he had thought of so often and yet had not had for so long.

He had not realized what Damien’s fear would do to him.

The taste that would make all others pale in comparison. The robust wine of his fear flavored with a strong hatred of Gerald, a pinch of subtle reluctant admiration, and something even deeper.

Something like friendship.

It was Delicious.

Heady, smooth and rich in a way that none of the soft women Gerald usually preferred were.

It lingered in his mind long after he had so carefully sipped from the forbidden cup, and no matter how many soft lambs he killed in the many nights after, the desire for an even more fulfilling meal was always there.

The desire for Damien was always there.

And the more of Damien’s fear and blood he drank, the more he knew him, the more he wanted, and less like a monster Garald became.

Yet he couldn’t help but think that the trade was fair.

The loss of Damien’s humanity and the slow regaining of his own -- it was perfectly monstrous.

It was perfectly him.


End file.
